Shingles Symptoms Rash

The Varicella virus causes very painful rashes to our skin which brings about shingles, scientifically known as the "Herpes zoster" is actually the similar virus that causes chickenpox.
People who had chickenpox in the past would still have the virus, but what happens is that it remains dormant, or inactive, in the nerve tissues, specifically underneath the skin.

When physical or emotional stress weakens the body's immune system, the virus becomes active...it becomes alive and would spread along the nerve fibers. It will then spread to the area of skin where the virus has been "asleep" which would continue spreading reaching the involved nerve, which is called the dermatome.

Belonging to the Herpesviruses family, this virus is not the same as the Herpes simplex 1 and 2 viruses and these are the more severe types of Herpes, and they cause the cold sores and genital herpes, respectively.

What happens is that the skin experiences pain, itchiness, a tingling sensation, or the burning sensation of the skin, which come before the rash. The rash is then the indication of the shingles outbreak.

Blisters develop look like lesions of the chickenpox but the shingles are more concentrated in one area, and this area is the where the virus has lain dormant, and the blisters would then be forming a strip along the supplied area of the involved nerve.

Hardly ever would more than one nerve is contained. Blisters in shingles in time, would burst. Crusting over and healing would be the next stage. The whole duration of the outbreak would be from three to four weeks.

Shingles rash keep to a single path, forming a strip. This generally happens on the trunk, scalp, buttocks, face, or neck. The elderly are the more common patients to have the shingles. In 7 out of 10 cases, the shingles happen to persons 50 years old and above. The shingles affect both men and women, and there is no such study that one type of gender would have it more than the other
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While having only one attack or episode in one's lifetime would the shingles occur, recurring sessions of the rash would still take place, but it would generally occur on practically the same area when it first occurred.

When one gets the shingles on the face, the most often area it would affect would be the nose area and the eye area. Zoster Keratitis is the condition when the shingles affect the part of the eye called cornea. If not immediately cured, the virus can wound the cornea, eventually pointing on the patient becoming blind. For that reason, anyone who might have the shingles that would affect any part of your face must visit the doctor at once.